Bacon is delicious, and it's really not difficult to cook, but it is easy to screw up if you don't cook it long enough or leave it on the heat so long it's a mess of desiccated carbon. The folks at America's Test Kitchen have a method for frying bacon that results in perfectly crispy strips every single time. The secret ingredient? Water.

The video above tells the tale, but water frying over low heat for longer periods will both keep your whole house from smoking up and smelling like bacon, and it'll keep you from having to heat up the oven just to cook a quick breakfast. Granted, the water method may take as long as baking your bacon (my favorite method), but if you prefer taste of pan-fried bacon to oven-baked, this method will work well for you—plus it renders out most of the fat nicely so you don't have a pool of bacon grease to clean up (which can be a pro or a con depending on whether you want to reuse that fat for something else!)

What's your favorite bacon prep method? Do you use the microwave, toss it in the oven, or do something else? Let's hear it in the comments below.